Following the shooting in Hamburg’s HafenCity district police believe a family dispute was behind the attack. On 11 November 2026, investigators shared further details about the 68-year-old suspect and events leading up to the shooting. The man is alleged to have shot his daughter-in-law and a security guard on 10 November. He was later found dead in a hotel room in the Elbphilharmonie found.
According to police, the suspect had already visited his son and daughter-in-law’s home on 9 November. He allegedly threatened the 39-year-old in the stairwell, prompting her to flee to neighbours. The man is also alleged to have damaged the family’s cars with hydrochloric acid in the underground car park. The family had hired a security guard, who accompanied the woman the following morning.
The woman and the security guard were seriously injured in the shooting on 10 November. Police found the 40-year-old man on a pavement and the woman in the underground car park. Both were taken to hospital. According to police, as reported by Südwestrundfunk on 11 November, the woman was no longer in a life-threatening condition; the man’s condition was stable.
The suspect was found during the search in a hotel room in the Elbphilharmonie building. According to the police’s initial findings, he died by suicide. Norddeutscher Rundfunk reported, citing police, that the man had possessed the pistol used illegally.
The investigation also covers Baden-WürttembergAt the suspect’s flat in Eningen unter Achalm at Reutlingen two bodies were discovered on 10 November: his 65-year-old wife and his 90-year-old father-in-law. According to the investigation so far, the man is alleged to have killed both of them there before travelling to Hamburg . Police are examining the links between the deaths and the shooting in HafenCity.
The 68-year-old had already come to the attention of the courts before these events. The Reutlingen District Court had sentenced him in November 2025 to a combined prison term of two years and five months for fraud. The verdict was not final because the man had appealed. According to Tübingen Regional Court, appeal proceedings were under way at the time of the incidents; a new hearing date had not initially been set.
To assess these events, it is important to distinguish between the established outcomes and the circumstances that are still being clarified: two people were shot in Hamburg, and three people were found dead in Hamburg and Eningen. Authorities are continuing to investigate what happened and the motive. Police have said the background was a family matter; details of the dispute and the precise sequence of events remain under investigation.
Editor: Mira Cadena (Article created with AI assistance).